MARCH 2024 · ADVENTURE
Pen Y Fan in the snow
Central Beacons, Bannau Brycheiniog
Pen y Fan gets all the attention. It's on the list, it's where people go. On a winter weekend with snow forecast it looks like a queue outside a shop.
I'd planned to camp at the summit. The forecast said gentle breeze. The forecast was wrong. The wind at the top was the strongest I've encountered on any hill — not a gust situation but sustained force, the kind that makes standing still a problem and moving in a straight line a deliberate act. The snow was wet and heavy, not the dry powder that photographs well. It came horizontally in intervals. Plans changed: no camp, a loop instead.
The fence posts that mark the path across the plateau were the most reliable reference point — wooden posts in a line, disappearing into the white, something to follow when the ground and sky became the same colour.
Pen y Fan — March 2024
What the conditions gave back was the mountain in a state most people don't see. At the summit plateau the visibility dropped to a few metres — the rime ice formations on the rocks, the wind-sculpted snow, grass tufts showing through the white. A hiker in an orange jacket appeared and vanished into the cloud on the descent. The snow surface had texture: shallow ravines wind-carved into the slope, dark debris speckling the white where the gusts had scoured it down to peat. A frozen streambed cut through the plateau, brown banks on each side, the water still moving underneath.
Near the cliff edges on the ridge the exposure to the drop combines badly with the wind. Several people I watched were unsteady, taking sideways steps, leaning into nothing. The fence posts that mark the path across the plateau were the most reliable reference point — wooden posts in a line, disappearing into the white, something to follow when the ground and sky became the same colour.
The cloud broke once on the descent, briefly, enough to show the reservoir in the valley below and a strip of clearing sky. Then the snow closed back in and it was just the white slope and the fence posts again.
Snow-covered Pen y Fan summit with grassy tufts emerging through white landscape in whiteout conditions
Lone hiker in orange jacket descending white slope into blizzard and cloud
Snowy mountain ridge with wind-carved surface patterns fading into heavy cloud
Hiker on snow-covered slope beneath steep white mountain face in low visibility
Mountain slope with rime ice formations, dead trees, and snow-covered terrain below
Snow-dusted cliff face and rocky slope in winter landscape with bare vegetation
Wind-sculpted snow formation on mountainside with brown earth and sparse vegetation exposed
Close-up of rime ice and windblown snow patterns covering rocky terrain
Valley vista beneath snow-covered slopes with clearing sky and blue water visible in distance
Frozen streambed cutting through white snowscape with brown banks in whiteout visibility
Rolling snow-covered plateau with shallow stream channel under overcast skies
Smooth snow dome summit fading into cloud with wind-carved ridges on the slope
Snow-covered mountain slope with dark rocky outcrops beneath heavy low cloud
Steep snow-laden slope descending into cloud with wind-swept surface texture
Mountain ridge crest with snow-covered slope and rocky cliff face in whiteout conditions
Close-up of snow-covered slope with shallow ravines and wind-sculpted surface patterns
Snow-covered mountainside with sparse tufts and wind-carved ridges under low cloud
Blizzard conditions with white snow-covered slope and minimal visibility into heavy cloud
Wind-blown snow patterns and rime formations across rocky plateau in whiteout
Snow-covered ridge descending into deep cloud with black rocky crag emerging through white
White snow slope with sparse vegetation breaking through and steep mountain face beyond
Hiker on snow-covered mountain slope with fence line and white landscape in severe conditions
Wooden fence posts marking path across white snowy plateau under heavy overcast sky
Snow-covered slope fading into whiteout mist with wind texture across the surface
Hiker ascending snow-covered path alongside fence in whiteout blizzard conditions
Snow-covered mountain ridge with steep black cliff face and white slope in low light
White snowy plateau with black speckles of debris or vegetation dots across the surface
Speckled snow surface with sparse dark vegetation emerging through blanket of white